Verizon's latest move shows it's paying attention to a specific kind of user

I've hated this phone design trend for years, and I'm happy it's gone

Phone Arena

6 hours ago

Phone Arena

I've hated this phone design trend for years, and I'm happy it's gone

I'm now finally happy to report that one of the most annoying features of modern smartphones is finally done for in 2025. After a not-so-brief fad that spanned from high-end to entry-level devices, this is the year when curved-screen phones are now a distant memory and an exception rather than the rule. To me, there was nothing more annoying than a great flagship phone with a screen that curves towards the frame to the sides. I'll admit that the first iterations of this design fad that I experienced on the Galaxy S7 edge and the Galaxy S8 were quite intriguing and novel, successfully setting themselves apart from the rest of their rivals at the time. It was new and flashy and looked a bit futuristic. What do you mean we could suddenly make phones with curved displays that didn't have to be completely flat? As an added bonus, the arrival of curved screens coincided with the major paradigm shift in terms of interface navigation: gestures. Somehow, curved screens worked quite well with gesture-based navigation back in the day, allowing for really satisfying and precise back gestures, for example. However, over the next couple of years since the first curved-screen Samsung flagships, I used many more phones with such screens and quickly began to detest them for various, dare I say, objectively true reasons. The Galaxy S8 was exceptional and the curved design was intriguing back then, but it quickly overstayed its welcome in the coming years (Image by PhoneArena) No two ways about it - curved screens are terrible when it comes to ergonomics. The reason is glaringly obvious: less area on the side for a comfortable grip. In the most extreme cases I can recall, we had some very extreme curves that ended with barely a millimeter or two of usable area, which is barely enough for a secure hold. That's opposed to most modern phones, where the side frame you grip is as thick as the phone itself, giving significantly better contact with the user's palm even though sharper edges themselves are a whole other can of worms. Probably the most offensive aspect of a phone with a curved screen is just how much of the displayed content is lost to the curve itself. Even though a phone with such a screen was technically, say, 6.7 inches wide, the actual usable area was smaller due to the sides of the screen warping the photos, videos, or any other content you're viewing. Not cool at all. That was particularly bad if you watched a lot of video or gamed a lot on your phone, as the experience was much worse than a contemporary device with a more regular flat display. This was one of the biggest reasons why I grew to dislike phones with curved screens that much. But get this, it's not only that curved screens "ate" up usable screen real estate - the curves also gave us significant edge reflections and glare. The crests of the curves were always prone to pick up all the reflections from all nearby light sources. This only added insult to injury, as you not only had less usable screen real estate, the offending areas also blinded you and added to the inferior experience. Reflections galore (Image by PhoneArena) Accidental "ghost" touches In the earlier days of curved-screen phones, I used to accidentally trigger gestures and buttons all the time. Palm rejection wasn't great then, but even later devices often made it easy to unintentionally tap some interface element. That has never happened to me with a regular non-curved phone. Imagine how much more battery you could fit on a phone with a curved screen if it had flat edges instead. Well, probably not much, but as in all cases, every little bit helps. The unique shape of curved-screen phones means that the extreme parts of the phones were a liability rather than providing usable extra space for extra hardware. I'm a klutz, so if a phone I'm using doesn't come with a pre-applied screen protector, I usually try to get one just for the sake of protecting the screen from scratches and drops. With modern flat-screen phones, that's an easy ordeal, you can find a decent tempered glass or TPU screen protector for just about any modern phone out there. However, that's not the case with curved screens. Screen protectors were a pain to find and apply, and they typically left an unprotected area which got in the way of your finger tips and made the navigation experience that much worse. Have you cracked the screen of a phone with a curved display? I have, and the repair bill was not a particularly beautiful sight to behold. Call in anecdotal evidence, but I'm certain that curved screen replacements were always pricier than those of standard phones. And that's the problem, really: curved displays only added to the costs of ownership without actively contributing to the overall functionality of the phone itself. For me, that's the clearest case of form over function, and I',m so glad we've phased these out. I haven't had to use a curved-screen phone extensively for more than a year, and what a relief! Only dealing with flat-screen phones and not having to put up with all the negative reasons listed above has been nothing short of a mini revelation. I'm so glad we've outgrown the peculiar curves and universally adopted the modern all-flat design language, which honestly is the most sensible one around.

We finally got rid of the most annoying phone design trend, and I couldn't be happier

Phone Arena

6 hours ago

Phone Arena

We finally got rid of the most annoying phone design trend, and I couldn't be happier

I'm now finally happy to report that one of the most annoying features of modern smartphones is finally done for in 2025. After a not-so-brief fad that spanned from high-end to entry-level devices, this is the year when curved-screen phones are now a distant memory and an exception rather than the rule. To me, there was nothing more annoying than a great flagship phone with a screen that curves towards the frame to the sides. I'll admit that the first iterations of this design fad that I experienced on the Galaxy S7 edge and the Galaxy S8 were quite intriguing and novel, successfully setting themselves apart from the rest of their rivals at the time. It was new and flashy and looked a bit futuristic. What do you mean we could suddenly make phones with curved displays that didn't have to be completely flat? As an added bonus, the arrival of curved screens coincided with the major paradigm shift in terms of interface navigation: gestures. Somehow, curved screens worked quite well with gesture-based navigation back in the day, allowing for really satisfying and precise back gestures, for example. However, over the next couple of years since the first curved-screen Samsung flagships, I used many more phones with such screens and quickly began to detest them for various, dare I say, objectively true reasons. The Galaxy S8 was exceptional and the curved design was intriguing back then, but it quickly overstayed its welcome in the coming years (Image by PhoneArena) No two ways about it - curved screens are terrible when it comes to ergonomics. The reason is glaringly obvious: less area on the side for a comfortable grip. In the most extreme cases I can recall, we had some very extreme curves that ended with barely a millimeter or two of usable area, which is barely enough for a secure hold. That's opposed to most modern phones, where the side frame you grip is as thick as the phone itself, giving significantly better contact with the user's palm even though sharper edges themselves are a whole other can of worms. Probably the most offensive aspect of a phone with a curved screen is just how much of the displayed content is lost to the curve itself. Even though a phone with such a screen was technically, say, 6.7 inches wide, the actual usable area was smaller due to the sides of the screen warping the photos, videos, or any other content you're viewing. Not cool at all. That was particularly bad if you watched a lot of video or gamed a lot on your phone, as the experience was much worse than a contemporary device with a more regular flat display. This was one of the biggest reasons why I grew to dislike phones with curved screens that much. But get this, it's not only that curved screens "ate" up usable screen real estate - the curves also gave us significant edge reflections and glare. The crests of the curves were always prone to pick up all the reflections from all nearby light sources. This only added insult to injury, as you not only had less usable screen real estate, the offending areas also blinded you and added to the inferior experience. Reflections galore (Image by PhoneArena) Accidental "ghost" touches In the earlier days of curved-screen phones, I used to accidentally trigger gestures and buttons all the time. Palm rejection wasn't great then, but even later devices often made it easy to unintentionally tap some interface element. That has never happened to me with a regular non-curved phone. Imagine how much more battery you could fit on a phone with a curved screen if it had flat edges instead. Well, probably not much, but as in all cases, every little bit helps. The unique shape of curved-screen phones means that the extreme parts of the phones were a liability rather than providing usable extra space for extra hardware. I'm a klutz, so if a phone I'm using doesn't come with a pre-applied screen protector, I usually try to get one just for the sake of protecting the screen from scratches and drops. With modern flat-screen phones, that's an easy ordeal, you can find a decent tempered glass or TPU screen protector for just about any modern phone out there. However, that's not the case with curved screens. Screen protectors were a pain to find and apply, and they typically left an unprotected area which got in the way of your finger tips and made the navigation experience that much worse. Have you cracked the screen of a phone with a curved display? I have, and the repair bill was not a particularly beautiful sight to behold. Call in anecdotal evidence, but I'm certain that curved screen replacements were always pricier than those of standard phones. And that's the problem, really: curved displays only added to the costs of ownership without actively contributing to the overall functionality of the phone itself. For me, that's the clearest case of form over function, and I',m so glad we've phased these out. I haven't had to use a curved-screen phone extensively for more than a year, and what a relief! Only dealing with flat-screen phones and not having to put up with all the negative reasons listed above has been nothing short of a mini revelation. I'm so glad we've outgrown the peculiar curves and universally adopted the modern all-flat design language, which honestly is the most sensible one around.

Churn, baby, churn. AT&T's CEO and CFO reveal what's ailing the carrier

Phone Arena

16 hours ago

Phone Arena

Churn, baby, churn. AT&T's CEO and CFO reveal what's ailing the carrier

Churn is the metric computed by wireless providers to determine the percentage of customers in a specific category who switched from one carrier to another or gave up wireless service altogether during a given period (usually a quarter). Obviously, the carriers want this number to decline and if it is rising, that's not a good sign. For example, AT&T recently reported its Q2 earnings and announced that during the quarter, it's postpaid phone churn (the most important churn category of all) rose 17 basis points year-over-year from .70% to .87%. The Q2 postpaid phone churn figure takes away some of the positive feelings analysts might have had over AT&T 's announcement that during the second quarter of the year, the carrier added 401,000 net new postpaid phone customers. The higher churn figure comes after AT&T raised the price of its retired unlimited wireless plans. The monthly price was hiked $10 for customers with one line, those with multiple lines are paying $20 more. Earlier this year, the carrier reduced the monthly autopay discount to $5 from $10 for those paying their autopay balance with a debit card. But CEO John Stankey isn't blaming price hikes for AT&T's churn problem. AT&T shares have been hot, rising over 47% over the last year. | Image credit-Yahoo Last week, during an earnings call, Stankey said, "I don't view pricing as being our issue in terms of managing churn. Obviously, every time we take a pricing action, we're cognizant that there's going to be some dislocation that we have been historically pretty good at assessing, modeling and managing. We try to do our pricing in a way where we tie prices to value. So we find places where there's maybe recaptured value that we can price out differently so that the customer feels like it's not just a price increase, but they understand they've gotten something over time or in return for it, where they're less likely to go." -Pascal Desroches, AT&T , CFO So what is causing AT&T 's rising churn issues? Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches gave several reasons during the earnings call. He blamed a "competitive environment," a higher percentage of customers coming off financing contracts, and he even threw in President Donald Trump's tariffs as a contributor to AT&T 's sharply higher Q2 postpaid phone churn percentage. Speaking of our president, Desroches said that the administration's deportation of illegal immigration has had a negative impact on AT&T 's business. "If you look at what's gone on in the prepaid market this quarter, I do believe some of that falls through to immigration and some of the dynamics that are occurring there," the CFO said. AT&T 's CEO Stankey, discussing the impact of Trump's tariffs on customer pricing, made it clear that the carrier's customers will end up paying for the higher import taxes. He said, "So I think that if ultimately costs are passed to us from those that we buy handsets from, unfortunately for the customer, we're going to have to come up with some new ways for them to figure out how to digest that increase in pricing." Remember, tariffs are import taxes that are paid on products and goods imported into the U.S. by countries that have tariffs imposed on them. Despite what you might have been told or heard, they are paid by U.S. companies and some are passed along to American consumers. AT&T 's 17 percentage point increase in postpaid phone churn was higher than the 10 point year-over-year hike in T-Mobile's postpaid phone churn. Verizon's churn in the same category was flat. It all indicates that the game of carrier musical chairs continues as consumers chase the latest deals. Another issue that AT&T doesn't seem to address is the carrier's disappointing performance in Ookla's Speedtest Connectivity Report. The latter measured how well the carrier's network performed during the first half of the year and in most categories, AT&T was dead last after T-Mobile and Verizon.

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I've hated this phone design trend for years, and I'm happy it's gone

We finally got rid of the most annoying phone design trend, and I couldn't be happier

Churn, baby, churn. AT&T's CEO and CFO reveal what's ailing the carrier

Verizon's latest move shows it's paying attention to a specific kind of user

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Try Our AI Features

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Related Articles

I've hated this phone design trend for years, and I'm happy it's gone

We finally got rid of the most annoying phone design trend, and I couldn't be happier

Churn, baby, churn. AT&T's CEO and CFO reveal what's ailing the carrier

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